


Write My Name With Yours

by jeien



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Yuuri gets embarrassed over something other than his posters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 09:11:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8744050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeien/pseuds/jeien
Summary: When Viktor shows the curious piece of paper he found by Yuuri’s laptop to Yuuko, he wasn’t expecting her to burst out into a roaring fit of laughter.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I started out trying to work on 'Lead Me Astray' (it's been two weeks but I'M HALFWAY DONE, OKAY???)
> 
> Then, suddenly this happened.

Viktor has to admit—it hurt his pride, being laughed at like this.

It’s only been a few months since he first arrived in Japan. Sure, he has a better grasp of the language; he can talk his way around Hasetsu and even understands some figure skating terminology. He’s learned how to adjust the angle of his bow when he greets people, to _never_ point his chopsticks at anyone when he’s eating, to always take his shoes off at the door and the indoor slippers if he comes across the _tatami_ mats.

But they don’t actually believe that he would pick up on every cultural nuance in that short time, right?

So when Viktor shows the curious piece of paper he found by Yuuri’s laptop to Yuuko, he wasn’t expecting her to burst out into a roaring fit of laughter not unlike her husband’s.

“Sorry, sorry,” she apologizes, still gripping the low wall of the rink to keep herself from falling over. Yuuko wipes the small tears from the corners of her eyes and fans her face, flushed red from the exertion. “I just—Oh man, that’s definitely Yuuri’s handwriting. I didn’t expect you to show me that and it caught me by surprise.”

Viktor looks at the piece of notebook paper once more, eyes scouring for the secret hilarity. There’s a triangle with a line protruding downwards from the bottom side; on either side of the line are Japanese characters he can’t read. (While his verbal Japanese has improved, his literacy was still the same it was when he got there.) He can’t make heads or tails of it at all. “Is it some kind of charm? Like for protection or good luck?”

“Kind of,” Yuuko replies. She smiles like she knew exactly what was going on. “Viktor, what’s the most romantic thing you could think of?”

Where on earth did _that_ come from?

“From what I hear, my people have a weird way of looking at love,” Viktor says. He had read a very interesting essay about it once, when he had been researching for a potential program in his early years of the Senior Division. “But things like kissing in the rain, being on the swings, or looking up at the stars come to mind. There’s plenty.”

“For us,” Yuuko says, “it’s sharing an umbrella.”

“An umbrella…” He looks down at the paper again. It does kind of look like one, if it was broken down into its basic shapes.

Wait a second.

“I need to find Yuuri,” Viktor blurts out. Yuuko’s smile blooms into a full grin and he takes that as his cue to leave. He runs out of Ice Castle, unlocks his bicycle, and pedals back to Yu-topia as fast as his legs could possibly manage.

He finds Yuuri at the entryway ( _genkan_ , Viktor’s mind remembers). He’s sitting on the raised floor, tying his shoes, as he speaks in hurried Japanese to his mother, stationed at the hostess’s counter like usual. He hears his name being said when Viktor slides the front door open.

“Yuuri!”

“Viktor?” Yuuri’s head snaps up and his brows draw together, confused. “I thought you were going ahead of me. Did I get the time wrong for practice?”  

“Yuuri, what does this say?” Viktor asks, ignoring the question in lieu of shoving the (now crinkled) sheet of paper into Yuuri’s face. _Maybe I should tone it down_ , Viktor thinks when he watches Yuuri pull his hand off his face to fix his skewed glasses.

“What does what sa—” Yuuri’s voice comes to a screeching halt mid-sentence and all color drains from his face. If the ungodly shriek that came from Yuuri’s mouth wasn’t enough to shake the _onsen_ to its foundations, Yuuri’s thundering retreat to his room certainly did.

“Oh my!” Hiroko says with a pleasant laugh. “I thought he stopped with that ages ago!”

Viktor remembers to take off his shoes before approaching her. “You know what it is?”

She nods. “You may not know this, but sharing an umbrella is a very romantic gesture. It’s called _ai-ai gasa_ : the love umbrella! It’s like our equivalent of writing a crush’s name inside a heart. You draw an umbrella and put your name with your crush’s name underneath—it’s very popular with young people. You don’t usually see this kind of thing with adults.” Viktor’s mind soaks up the new information. _Ai-ai gasa_. So Yuuri had written his name with someone else’s? Hiroko puts her forefinger against her smiling lips, closing one eye in a mischievous wink. “Don’t tell Yuuri I told you, but when he first got into skating, he would write his name with yours under the umbrella.”

It doesn’t take very long for him to start sprinting to Yuuri’s room.

There’s a pang of déjà vu as Viktor knocks on Yuuri’s door and feeling Yuuri push against it like some kind of barricade. “Come on, Yuuri, open up!”

“No way!” Viktor hears from the other side of the door, followed by a quiet gasp. “I… Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. I’m just really embarrassed. I’ll head to the rink in a while, so please just leave me alone for a bit.”

Viktor never wants to push Yuuri into doing anything he’s truly not comfortable with, so it’s all he could do to say, “Well, alright. But you know, I’m not mad or anything. I’m pretty happy that you wrote my name instead of someone else’s. If I were doing one, I’d write your name with mine, too.”

No reply comes. Viktor figures that’s the end of the conversation and walks back to the front lobby with the intention of waiting for Yuuri to come to Ice Castle—at least, until something catches his eye. _That’s right_ , he remembers. They keep spare umbrellas by the door for patrons to use in case it suddenly rained. Viktor feels the gears turning like he was constructing a program with another one of his signature twists. He’ll wait for Yuuri here instead.

“Mrs. Katsuki, is it okay if I borrow this?”

\--

Half an hour passes before Viktor sees Yuuri pass through the threshold of the front lobby. Yuuri nearly hits his head on the wall behind him with how quickly he jumped back.

“I thought you left,” Yuuri says. He makes his way to the _genkan_ and sits down on the raised floor to put on his shoes.

“I wanted to walk together,” Viktor says. He discreetly takes an umbrella from the umbrella stand before taking a seat next to him. “Say, Yuuri, can we do that _ai-ai gasa_ thing?”

Yuuri’s hands tense up as he pulls his shoelaces into a sturdy bow. He pushes himself up from the raised floor without meeting Viktor’s eyes and slides the door open—the blush that spreads all the way to his ears doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Um. Let’s save it for when it’s actually raining. It’d be a waste of an umbrella otherwise.”

Viktor smiles. He can wait.

**Author's Note:**

> The article briefly mentioned is [this one](https://aeon.co/essays/russia-against-the-western-way-of-love) and it's actually REALLY INTERESTING IMO. 
> 
> Now back to working on the other thing sobs
> 
> hmu on [twitter](https://twitter.com/jeienb) or [tumblr](https://hadesdancehall.tumblr.com/) if you wanna say hi lol (though i'm a little more active on twitter nowadays)


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